


Still Falling For You

by featherlightflight



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post - Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 07:25:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherlightflight/pseuds/featherlightflight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's alone when he wakes up, but his pillow smells like Louis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Falling For You

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [not fortune's fool](https://archiveofourown.org/works/838956) by [eleadore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleadore/pseuds/eleadore). 



> Hiii! Alright so I just read [Eleadore](../users/eleadore/pseuds/eleadore)'s one-shot "[Not Fortune's Fool](838956)" (like literally just finished it about a minute ago) and it was so absolutely incredibly fantastic that I just couldn't help myself and I had to go and write something.
> 
> I highly recommend reading her story first (it's short don't worry!) before reading this because while you might be able to get through this without the back-story from "Not Fortune's Fool" you'll probably be at least a little confused.
> 
> Also the title's from the song Still Falling For You by Boz Scaggs :)
> 
> Anyways, hope you all enjoy!

Louis is gone when Harry wakes up. He tries to tell himself otherwise, that maybe Louis' just gone to the bathroom, or to the kitchenette to make himself a cup of tea. Or maybe he's already made the tea and he's sitting on the balcony taking tiny little sips from an oversized mug. Harry tells himself that if that's the case then there's probably a cup sitting on the counter next to the kettle with a tea bag already in it just waiting to be filled with water and a little bit of milk for himself.

Maybe, he thinks, Louis' just woken up early and grown impatient with him. He knows he sleeps later now than he used to. He also knows Louis always had trouble sitting around and waiting for him to wake up. To his credit he would always try, but there was just too much energy bottled up in that boy for him to sit still very long - even when he was wrapped up in 'his boy' (and Harry doesn't even let himself wonder when Louis stopped calling him that but he knows it's probably about the same time Louis stopped calling).

In the end he decides that Louis must have remembered what Zayn said yesterday about somebody finally inventing flying cars. He must have woken up early and gone looking for one. Harry can picture him wandering around whatever city they're in and asking strangers for directions to the nearest 'flying car dealership'. It's a city with a name that Harry can barely pronounce and a language he can't even pretend to understand, so he doubts the locals will be able to understand Louis' questions well enough to wonder if he should be institutionalized.

Harry knows, of course, that none of that is true. He doesn't hear the shower running nor the kettle boiling and he's beyond certain that nineteen year old Louis, the naive little lovestruck teenager that he is, would have left without waking him up for whatever adventure he wanted to go on.

Harry isn't dumb. He knows he's alone.

He still doesn't want to open his eyes though, just incase Louis, the Louis who's somehow managed to steal his heart all over again, decides to change his mind and come back. He's not even sure that it's possible but he certainly hopes so. He sort of half hopes that the Louis who's tearing his heart to shreds little by little will come back too - come back to his senses that is.

He's not the Louis that Harry fell for anymore, and he's certainly not the Louis he found at his door last night. No, this new Louis is distant and cold. He's hardly even Louis anymore.

Every now and then Harry gets a glimpse of the old Louis. Sometimes when it's late and Louis' just on the verge of sleep he'll mumble things that he pretends to forget in the morning. Or who knows, maybe he really does forget. And sometimes he'll hear Louis order two of something by mistake. He'll always claim that somebody else must have messed up and given him two by mistake but they both know that whatever coffee shop in whatever part of the world they're in that Louis has decided to try because he's suddenly become too lazy to make his own tea would never be able to get Harry's order right every single time by mistake. Neither of them ever mention it though, and Harry is grateful because at the heart of it he knows exactly what that cup of tea is. It's a consolation prize. It's Louis' way of saying, _"here, you can't have me, but you can have this cup of tea if you like"_.

Harry prefers not to think about it.

He prefers not to think about any of this actually, but Louis has always had a knack for making him think about things he's not ready to think about.

Harry waits until the sheets go cold to get out of bed and the very first thing he sees when he does is the pile of Louis' clothes still sitting right where he left it on the floor. That hurts. The warmth of his sheets faded fast enough that he could pretend it was never there and he'd come across Louis' scent so many times in so many places that it isn't even a challenge to convince himself he's just imagined it anymore. Seeing Louis' clothes lying on the ground though, that hurts.

He doesn't want to get all sappy about it but he can't help but think those clothes are like a terrible metaphor for his life, because his Louis, the one he fell for back then, that Louis is gone and now all Harry has to remember him by is the shell of a man that he's left behind.

He makes two cups of tea and decides not to shower. He thinks he can still just barely feel Louis' touch and he doesn't want to risk washing it away just yet.

The second cup of tea gets left sitting out on the balcony when they leave the hotel that night and Harry spends the entire trip to the next hotel wondering if Louis will ever come back and find it.

As he's waiting for the key to his new hotel room he decides that he hopes Louis never finds it. He doesn't want Louis to be left with a consolation prize, he wants him to win the jackpot.

He's not sure if he's upset or relieved when he finds nothing has changed between twenty-one year old Louis and himself. Liam says it's a good thing - a great thing actually - because if even one little thing had changed while the Louis' were switched it could have lead to dire consequences. Nobody asks what those consequences would be.

Everything's perfectly normal for about three days after that, or well, whatever semblance of 'normal' they've all found themselves stuck in lately. Louis doesn't talk much about what it was like being back in the x-factor house and he doesn't talk to Harry at all. He goes clubbing with Niall on his second night back and spends the whole third day grumpy and bitter. Nobody questions why he came home alone when they all know very well just how many girls (and guys for that matter) must have thrown themselves at him. Harry doesn't even let himself wonder.

He does wonder about little Louis though. He wonders what the younger version of himself had to say about the new and not-so-improved Louis. Wonders what little Harry thought about all the tattoos, or if Louis even let him see any. Probably not. There's no way Louis would want to have to explain them all and he knows for a fact the younger Harry would be curious and probably just a little annoying about it. Either way he just hopes that the new Louis didn't ruin anything. They were young and they were in love and maybe Louis' not anymore but Harry refuses to believe that Louis could ever be heartless enough to ruin something so pure and so innocent.

He wonders if little Louis told his Harry about what they did together. There's no question in his mind that his younger counterpart would be jealous, probably sucked Louis off  _twice_ that night just because and Louis probably let slip just how much better he'll be at it in a few years time. Or maybe he kept that to himself, maybe things had been good last night because Harry was so much more experienced than Louis but they'd been better with the younger Harry because that Harry was 'his boy' and even the things that weren't so great really were when he thought back on it all.

Mostly he just hopes that little sixteen year old Harry and little nineteen year old Louis find a way to put the pieces back together when everything starts to fall apart.

It crosses his mind one night on the tour bus when he's lying awake, staring at the ceiling and waiting for a sleep that never seems to come easy these days, that maybe the reason nothing changed with Louis in the here and now is because they never did manage to put the pieces together back then. Maybe if they had he would have been thrown into some alternate universe were he and Louis are still hopelessly in love and that thought right there sort of makes him feel like he's losing Louis all over again.

He sighs and slips out of his bunk as quietly as he can. He's definitely not sleeping now, not when it feels like somebody's just ripped open a wound that never really healed in the first place. His eyes are still half closed when he pads into the main section of the tour bus and flips the switch on the kettle to turn it on. He picks it up and sloshes it around once to make sure there's water in it before setting it down again. It's a fancy little thing with a built in hotplate at the base that someone gave them as a gift on their first world tour when they boarded a tourbus in America only to learn that there was no way to make tea. Louis had been amazed by it, he'd made more tea than the whole lot of them could drink in a year and even though most of it went cold long before anyone even realized it was there nobody told him to stop.

It comes to a boil before he's even had a chance to pull a mug from the cupboard and Harry's hardly awake enough to be surprised. He turns the kettle off, sets the tea bag in the mug, and then adds a bit of milk from the mini-fridge and some water from the kettle all before realizing that he doesn't even really want tea at the moment.

What he wants is Louis. His Louis. Louis always seemed to know how to quiet his mind on nights like these, and even towards the end when things were spinning out of control so quickly they couldn't see straight he was at least kind enough to tire Harry out and then hold him just a little bit tighter until they both fell asleep.

By some miracle (or perhaps some terrible twist of fate) he gets his wish. When Harry turns around to lean back against the counter, mug cradled close to his chest, he notices Louis sitting on the couch with his own mug in his lap and his eyes fixed on Harry. He looks sleepy and complacent and part of Harry just wants to pick him up, carry him back to their bunk and hold him tight until those tired eyes finally close. He knows he can't do that anymore - knows that _their_ bunk doesn't even exist anymore - that now it's Harry's bunk and Louis' bunk and they couldn't possibly be further away from each other if they tried.

Harry glances down at the mug in Louis' hands, watches his finger trace methodic circles around the 'O' in 'One Direction'. His eyes trace the familiar trail up Louis' chest to find Louis is still staring at him. It's more contact than they've had in days.

They're both silent, staring, for another long moment before Harry manages to utter a simple, "you're awake."

It sounds dumb to even his own ears but it seems to snap Louis out of whatever day dream he slipped into because suddenly he sits up a bit straighter and stares down at his tea. "So are you."

Harry nods, "couldn't sleep."

"Me neither."

And they lapse into silence once again.

It's not the comfortable sort of silence they used to share. This silence is nothing short of deafening. It's that tense sort of silence where both parties search desperately for something to say but still somehow come up short. It's the sort of silence Harry wishes he didn't have to say he'd come to expect between them.

He looks down at his tea and gives it an experimental swirl, watches as the creamier complexion of the milk blends a little further into the translucent tea. Louis appears to be doing the same, though Harry knows there isn't even a drop of milk in his cup. Maybe honey. Louis used to claim it helped him sleep. Harry can't help but wonder if it's still true.

"I was with you the other day," Louis finally says, his head down and his eyes still fixed on his tea, "spent the whole entire day with you. D'you remember that?"

"No." Harry says with a small shake of his head. He assumes Louis' probably talking about the younger version of himself, the one who's probably having a hard time coming to terms with what a mess he's going to make of his life. He hopes the younger Louis is there for him when he needs it, knows he will be.

Louis nods, "I hoped you wouldn't."

Harry doesn't know what to say to that. They're still not looking at each other and Harry tries, really tries, to remember when things got  _this_ bad. He can't pinpoint one moment though. Sure they'd had their fights and maybe some were worse than others but there was never a big end-all argument. It was more like a little one here and a little one there and then all of a sudden there were no more arguments because there was nothing left to argue about. There was nothing left at all.

"You used to be really needy, d'you know that?" Louis asks.

Harry nods, "you used to like that."

He thinks, out of the corner of his eye, he might see something akin to a smirk flash across Louis' face. Something that makes him think, maybe, that his Louis might still be in there somewhere. It's gone just as soon as it came though and with it goes the conversation.

Harry's tea is barely even luke-warm anymore but he can't bring himself to pour it down the drain. He can't bring himself to move at all actually.

They linger in silence long enough that Harry's fairly certain they're done talking. Louis keeps his eyes on the TV, though it's not even on, and Harry stares blankly out the window and it hurts, it physically hurts, but Harry doesn't have a clue how to fix something this broken.

Finally Louis sighs and sits forward just a bit, looks over to Harry. For once in his life he actually looks nervous and, what's even more surprising, he doesn't even try to hide it.

"You really used to love me, d'you know that?" He says softly.

Harry doesn't speak. He looks at his tea and at the clock and the little dent in the wall that nobody ever owned up to making - anywhere but at Louis.

Louis waits though, he waits longer than Harry's seen him wait for anything in a long time.

 

Eventually he sinks back into the couch. "I guess not." He mumbles under his breath.

"I was with you too." Harry blurts out before he can stop himself, and he's not sure where he's going with this but when Louis doesn't even spare him a cursory glance or any other indication that he's actually listening Harry decides he probably better get to the point soon. "I spent the whole day avoiding you and d'you know what you did? You showed up at my door in the middle of the night to tell me off for it."

Louis snorts, mumbles a dismissive, "sounds about right" but still doesn't look up.

"You asked me if we were still together." Harry says.

His admission is met with silence. Maybe he should have expected that. Louis hasn't wanted to talk about _them_ in forever, why would he now? Harry's just starting to regret bringing it up when Louis looks up through surprisingly glassy eyes and asks, "what did you tell him?"

"I didn't." Harry says with a small shake of his head, and for a moment Louis almost looks relieved, "you put two and two together though."

"I'm not as dumb as I look." Louis mumbles, his gaze dropping to his cold tea once again.

Harry nods, "I know you're not."

"I'm not." Louis agrees.

They're silent again after that, but it seems a bit less tense than before. Feels a bit more like things are changing again. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing Harry's still not sure but for now he thinks it's better - doesn't see how it could possibly be worse.

A car passes by out the window, it's headlights illuminating Louis' profile in a way that only serves to make him that much more beautiful. 

Harry drags his teeth over his bottom lip, feels the words make their way all the way up from his chest to tumble off his tongue, "You used to love me back, d'you know that?"

"Harry-" Louis starts to say, but Harry quickly shakes his head.

"It's alright Louis, really," He says, "I get it, sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't and clearly we're one of those things that don't. It's like you said, we aren't actually in a film and I get that, I do, I know not every relationship comes complete with a happily-ever-after."

"I said that?" Louis asks softly. He looks genuinely surprised.

Harry nods, "yeah, you did."

Silence.

"I told you we were still together."

"What?" Harry asks.

Louis sighs and runs a hand through his hair, "when you asked about us, where we end up, I told you we were still together."

"Oh." Harry says deftly, like that sort of an admission doesn't leave him more confused than he's been in months, like his mind isn't racing a million miles a minute. "Why?"

Louis shrugs, traces a finger around the rim of his mug. "Wishful thinking I guess."

Harry doesn't say anything, doesn't know what to say, but luckily he doesn't have to because Louis just keeps going.

"I thought maybe if I told you that everything works out alright then at least maybe they would have a chance, y'know? Like maybe if you thought there really was something to look forward to then you might be able to find a way to build us back up when I start taring us down." Louis shrugs again, "I dunno, I just figured I've already ruined our lives, why not try to save theirs, right?"

"Louis it wasn't all your fault." Harry says softly.

Louis just rolls his eyes.

"I'm not saying you didn't mess up," Harry says, "I'm just saying you weren't the only one who messed up."

"I messed up more than you ever did. I used you Harry, I knew you were hurting and I still used you. I even pretended to be drunk a few times because I didn't want to have to sleep without you.. And then I still left before you woke up in the morning, like I didn't know exactly how that would make you feel." His voice builds as he speaks, slow and steady like a freight train ramming right on through Harry's heart.

"You didn't mean to-"

"Yes I did!" Louis practically screams, suddenly frantic, "I did mean to Harry! I knew exactly what I was doing! and I still did it!! because I was sad, and lonely, and pissed at myself for letting you go and, God, now you're standing here  _defending_ me! Stop defending me!"

Harry sighs, "Louis I'm tired of fighting with you." He says, his voice still soft and gentle despite how utterly defeated he sounds.

"Then don't fight with me." Louis says flatly. He sounds a bit defeated as well, like maybe he was hoping for a fight. He sighs and looks up to Harry again, "we don't have to fight but, can we talk? I mean really talk?"

"Do we really have anything left to talk about?" Harry asks.

Louis sighs and pats the couch, "c'mon, I've left things bad too many times. I'm not leaving this here."

Harry isn't sure what to do with himself after that. He walks over to sit by Louis on the couch when Louis pats it again and they both turn to face eachother, Harry with is left leg tucked under himself and Louis with his right, and they talk. They talk about everything that went wrong and everything that went right. They talk about their time together - they talk about their time apart. Louis confesses that he didn't sleep with even half of the people he brought home, that he just did it in the hopes that Harry would try to stop him and Harry confesses that he thought about it more often than not but he always found a reason not to. _'Oh Louis will be angry'_ or _'maybe he really likes this one'_ or _'he wouldn't do it if it were me'_.

They talk about mundane things too. Harry mentions that he's recently started watching Homeland on netflix. Louis ruins the ending but agrees to watch all seven seasons of Lost with Harry as compensation.

"I sucked you off," Harry says. Louis doesn't look even remotely impressed (because "honestly Harry when  _don't_ you suck me off?") but Harry smirks and shakes his head, "x-factor you."

Louis' eyes go wide and he pushes playfully at Harry's chest, "you perv!"

"Hey we were both nineteen it was perfectly legal!" Harry says in his own defense and Louis just laughs. He hasn't heard it in a while but it's still just as beautiful as he remembers it being.

"Took advantage of me didn't you." Louis says slyly.

"Got myself off in the bathroom after," Harry confesses.

"Oh." Is all Louis can say in response and Harry thinks he might sound just a little bit sad about it all.

They talk until they're both having trouble keeping their eyes open, but even then they don't stop just incase this, whatever it may be, is only for tonight. They both decide by unspoken agreement that it's not when they head back to the bunks just as the first hint of morning glows bright on the horizon. Louis crawls into Harry's bunk with him and doesn't even hesitate to curl up to him.

They kiss for a little while. It's soft and it's sweet and it's so,  _so_ , familiar despite how long it's been since they kissed like this.

It's nice, Harry thinks once they've both settled down again, as he starts to drift off to sleep, to finally have a little bit of Louis back. He's not quite sure of anything yet, and he knows what they've found is still fragile and it's so far from perfect but he thinks, for now, it's enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeeep, so that's all she wrote lady's and gent's. I'm sure my story line probably veered off course in more ways than one from what the author originally intended and I know this is a far cry from doing the original work any justice and I'll probably read this again tomorrow and wonder why I even bothered but I'm trying to get the next chapter of "[Wake Me Up](928440/chapters/1805551)" written and all I've been able to think about for the past hour is this story, so hopefully now that it's out of my system I'll be able to get back to what I was working on before :)
> 
> Thanks for reading! x


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